


El Divorcio Aventuroso De Sombra y Satya

by Xekstrin



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 05:21:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18772039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xekstrin/pseuds/Xekstrin
Summary: There are a lot of ways to say "I Love You".After years together, Sombra and Satya have figured out their own love languages.So that's why they need to get divorced as quickly as possible. Naturally.But a few well-placed explosions are standing between them and a satisfying end to the story.





	El Divorcio Aventuroso De Sombra y Satya

The first night back home was quiet. They rented a house by the ocean, close enough that they could hear the water lapping the sands from their bedroom window. Satya leaned on the balcony, mindlessly braiding her hair as she got ready for their date, and Sombra watched her from the darkest corner of the room, arms crossed.

It really was ridiculous, the things this woman did to her. Sombra had been infatuated before and yes, she knew the definition of limerence. If she didn't have constant accurate readouts of her biochemical status linked to the tablet in her palm, she'd wonder if she were being drugged. Some kind of long con, made to slowly break her mind and turn her into someone else. Over and over and over again Sombra tried to grab her by the head and force her to face the darkness and every single time, Satya spun it into light.

Satya leaned down, adjusting the straps on her high heels. The slit in her dress opened up just enough to display almost her entire leg, bare and soft.

Every inch of her started itching. She needed her fix. "Fucking hell."

Affixing gold loops to her left lobe, Satya spoke over the murmuring waves. “Did you say something, amor?”

“Yeah.” Sombra scowled. “I’m mad at how cute you are.”

Satya shot her a little smirk, confused but not about to deny the allegation anytime soon. They hadn't been on a real date in years, and Sombra realized she was an idiot for not trying to indulge her more often. Getting a chance to dress up and show off was something they both enjoyed, but never together. Never time enough, never enough safety.

After making a quick excuse, Sombra stepped outside to wait. She'd already finished getting ready, since she had a little less need for perfection in every detail. So she lit up a cigarette and grumbled and waited, trying hard not to freak out or get paranoid and call this whole thing off. Sure she'd used cash to rent the place and sure there were fake names attached to every document that existed and sure she had plans to burn them all to ashes when she was done here. But she didn't live this long by _not_ being paranoid, so she was paranoid, and the nicotine didn't do anything to soothe her racing heart. So maybe that had been a bad idea. So maybe all of this was a bad idea.

Opening her clutch, she pulled out a communicator. In white and shining bronze, the Overwatch symbol looked an awful lot like a stamp, or the metal buckle of a collar. Not for the first time and not for the last she considered chucking it into the ocean, or crushing it underfoot. Or tying it to a goat and letting that goat loose in the mountains and just seeing what happened from there. It was odd, being beholden to something bigger than her. But no odder than Talon, she supposed.

Overwatch was full of hypocrites, but at least they were _trying_. The image of goodness, the virtue-signalling, had sickened her at first, but she'd seen what happened when you swung too far in the other direction and valorized naked ambition. Anyway if she really wanted to be in a position to stop Overwatch from doing all they promised and more, there would be no better place to attack them than from the inside.

They didn't trust her, and she didn't trust them, and so they co-existed in an uneasy harmony where neither of them could move too far lest the other retaliate. But at the end of the day even if she had her finger on the trigger, Overwatch had the codes to the nuke, and that nuke's name was Satya Vaswani.

" _Enjoy yourself, Sombra_ ," she said, mockingly, to herself. " _Get a little vacation time, Sombra. Take your wife somewhere nice._ First off she's not my wife, so jot that down."

"That is an amusing thought, isn't it?"

Like a cat spooked by her own shadow, she jolted and turned around. Satya was smiling down at her, but the expression drifted away like sea mist the longer she stared at Sombra. Her hands passed over Sombra, fixing her collar, tucking in a tag, and then pausing right over her face.

"Am I being too asymmetrical today?" Sombra guessed with a grin. Piling her hair on top of her head, she showed off both shaved sides. "I can go mohawk instead of side style if it bothers you that much."

"No, it's not that." She tugged on Sombra's ear, fiddling with her piercing. They'd both gotten their cartilage pierced on the same day, in matching spots. One of their better dates. Then Satya's fingers traced her bobbing throat, nails scraping along sensitive skin. "Stay right where you are."

She vanished and returned with a thick gold necklace. It fit tight around Sombra's throat, and after fixing some of her stray curls, Satya was satisfied.

"Now you are perfect," Satya declared under her breath, tucking a finger under Sombra's chin and tilting her head back for a kiss.

In the self-driving car, Sombra should have been able to relax. But instead she pulled the tablet from her palm, shuffling out screens like cards in a deck. First she ran some scans to make sure the car wasn't bugged, then double checked their location and destination via GPS. Light brown eyes watched her, stolid. Satya was like her; she was always studying and gathering information, but she tucked it all away inside that inscrutable mind, working with systems beyond Sombra's ken.

Another dip into her tablets confirmed their reservation at the restaurant, and their promise of security and protection in the city. Of course Sombra never went anywhere unarmed and Satya never went anywhere _unarmed_ , pun intended, and that little cosita on her palm could summon just about anything out of hard light. Still, it was nice to know that she could theoretically call someone for backup. Assuming Overwatch would keep their word.

When they arrived Sombra got out first, circling around to open Satya's door and help her out. Her girlfriend waited patiently, since it was one of those little things Sombra liked to do instead of saying _I love you_. They had a ton of things like that. Sombra was good with words but not feelings, and Satya had way too many feelings to ever be able to put them into words, so they learned another language for each other in addition to the first two.

Without prompting, Satya delved into learning Spanish with a level of diligence that made Sombra feel inadequate. She muscled her way into halting, grammatically incorrect Hindi to prove she could keep up.

Then she learned to listen to what Satya was saying when no words were exchanged at all.

"Amor." When they stood, Satya drew Sombra's attention away from her tablets. "Do you want to go home?"

"We just got here."

"Are you uncomfortable?"

"Well these heels are pretty killer." That prompted a big bloody grin, full of teeth. She knew that Satya wasn't that good at reading her. It was just, these days she'd lapsed into introversion with a side helping of agoraphobia. It'd been like that as a teenager, too, dealing with a sudden loss of power. The strips of metal in her head had been shackled down, all her tech limited after a few confrontations with the wrong people. "I'm fine, chaand. Let's get to our table."

 _I didn't make all these plans to throw them aside last second,_ she chided herself. Sombra was done with the capriciousness that had ruled her life. She'd change for Satya, following in line with rules and order. She'd be the shadow sewn into place, foot to crown.

Once they were seated Sombra kept fiddling with her tablets. She squirmed, distracted and struggling to stay still, not in the mood for chit-chat.

Satya was fine with that; they both had moments where they weren't entirely present. She stimmed quietly, fingers painting circles over her open palm. Her prosthetic was the one she wore when trying to pass as a civilian, flesh colored, with delicate joints. But the heart of it still glowed neon blue when she played her light games, stretching and squashing and shaping. At the end she pulled out a little mouse, like a wind-up toy mouse, and sent it squeaking across the table.

Smiling, Sombra lowered a finger and let it roll up her arm and over her shoulder. It shimmered and shattered once it tapped against her ear, the crackle of dying light raising goosebumps along her neck.

Then, elbow on the table, Satya leaned forward and smiled at Sombra in a way that made her feel like she was about to be served as dessert.

Just as quickly it faded, making Sombra wonder if she'd imagined it. But through light conversation she saw it again and again, until she was squirming and distracted in her seat for an entirely different reason.

"You wanna hit the beach tomorrow?" Sombra suggested, reaching across the table. Satya responded with her prosthetic, hard plastic warm from the engine humming within. Their fingers linked together, and Sombra felt that warm center pulse against her palm. "There's a little shack there that serves mixed drinks by the gallon. We can sit and catch some rays and forget the world."

"It would be nice to be able to catch up on some reports," Satya said, and Sombra didn't even try to remind her they were supposed to be on vacation. Research was how Satya unwound at the end of the day.

Sneaking a foot out, she stroked it over Satya's bare calf and snickered when the other woman twitched. A game of footsie played out until the main course. Emboldened by the flute of champagne that had accompanied dessert, Sombra dared a little higher. Slipping out of her shoe, she traced a line over Satya's inner thigh.

Satya grabbed her by the ankle, eyebrows arched as if to say, _Really?_

Waving down their server, Satya requested the check and took care of it without any discussion. Sombra didn't mind. There were a lot of ways Satya liked to flex her power over Sombra, but paying the bill wasn't one of them. It was just a function, a little percentage to solve. Money didn't hold the same sway on Satya the like it did for other people, which Sombra found refreshing.

Of course, Satya had spent most of her formative years having her every need fulfilled by a billion-dollar company. Sombra wondered how Satya would be different if she'd had to scrape for it, but no matter how hard she tried to bend it, the vision felt wrong. Satya was too dignified to beg and bow, even if it meant her life.

"We should go fuck in the bathroom," Sombra muttered, linking their arms together when they got up to leave.

"We absolutely shouldn't. But thank you for reminding me, I do need to go wash my hands. Go wait by the car."

A sigh of frustration left her as Satya slipped out of her arm and headed to the bathroom.

Then, glancing around her, she waited a moment before chasing after Satya. She pranced the last few steps, or so it felt, sliding the door lock shut behind her. Satya glanced up suspiciously at her from the counter, frozen in the middle of re-applying her lipstick.

"Sombra," Satya said warningly.

Sidling up next to her, Sombra gave her a little hip bump. "What? I'm just in here. Washing my hands." She batted her eyelashes. "Whatever dirty things you're imagining are entirely on you."

Satya said, "What I'm imagining is you entirely naked except for that necklace I gave you, on white sheets. And I don't like unexpected changes in my plans."

Ooh. Delight shivered down her spine. If she were a cat she'd surely be fluffed up, tail sticking out straight. "Okaaaay. I _guess_ I can wait."

But in the next second, Satya had her bullied up against the locked door. The exposed back of her dress left her bare to cool metal, while Satya's prosthetic suddenly felt steaming hot as it gripped between her legs. Their height difference wasn't too dramatic, but Satya still had a way of making her feel very, very small. She squirmed, huffing and giggling as Satya kissed her neck, then down over her plunging neckline, and then over the fabric of her dress. She sank down to two knees, pulling Sombra's underwear down to her ankles and instructing her to step out of them.

Exhibitionism was _not_ in their usual list of kinks. Hell, Satya rarely even kissed Sombra outside the house. A long, wet lick between her lips left Sombra covering her mouth with both hands. She'd be quiet even if it killed her, anything as long as it meant Satya wouldn't come back to her senses and stop this.

Satya's painted red lips left a mark on her inner thigh, the shade stark against her skin. She spread her legs wider, unable to stop herself from grinding onto Satya's tongue. Her breath was hot, ragged, and she moved closer to the edge, so close to tumbling over...

...And Satya pulled back. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she took Sombra's underwear and gently folded it into her purse.

"Now go outside and wait by the car," Satya said, and Sombra almost screamed.

Bare under her dress, Sombra lit a cigarette and was puffing it down to the butt when Satya finally emerged from the restaurant. She said, "You sure took your time in there."

"If I didn't make you wait," Satya said, "It would not have been an effective lesson."

"Whatever happened to a good old fashioned spanking?"

Satya fixed her hair into place, long and black as silk. "You aren't supposed to enjoy punishments."

"Yeah?" Sombra blew a smoke ring before leaning forward to break through it. "Well now I'm gonna ruin the car seats."

"A necessary sacrifice," she said as the valet swerved the car around.

She wanted to stay mad but the second the doors shut and the self-driving car was off, Satya was on her again. She could taste herself on Satya's mouth, that tongue forcing its way inside her. "Hey, hey, Saty," she murmured in between kisses, a little overwhelmed. "Somebody spike your drink or something?"

Breathing hard, Satya braced herself above Sombra. Dark brows bunched together. "What?" she murmured, impatient as she freed Sombra's breasts. She weighed them in her palms, massaging them before taking a nipple into her mouth, laving Sombra's piercings with her tongue.

Sombra didn't ask any questions after that, especially when the unforgiving hardness of Satya's prosthetic was working deep inside of her. There was a click and then a rolling vibration. Satya hovered over Sombra, still in her cocktail dress, still in control while Sombra was naked and twisting underneath her.

The civilian prosthetic also had a few _domestic_ applications, and Satya pressed it right against her clit at the strongest setting. Already turned on, Sombra had no way of fighting it. She felt like the orgasm was going to hurt, it started coming so fast. And she didn't know if she was supposed to be fighting it or not.

"Saty—" Sombra started, fists winding into red fabric, desperate.

"You're going to come." It was permission voiced like an order, and Sombra let it overtake her, climaxing with a shout.

Another loud click. Satya waved her hand once, as if to rid it of any extra jitters, and then softened when Sombra climbed onto her lap for cuddles. Satya stroked her head. "That felt good," Satya said.

Arching closer, Sombra took a moment to enjoy the aftershocks, still pulsing with pleasure. The streetlights were fuzzy, whipping past. Light and darkness, strobe-like. She saw Satya in flashes and glimpses. The prosthetic was warm and soft when she cleaned Satya's fingers with a few laps of her tongue. "You could feel that?"

"When you call me Saty," she clarified. "You only do it when you're...like that."

Then she passed the glowing core of her prosthetic over Sombra's eyes. Light sparkled for a moment before everything went dark, and something heavy looped around her skull. A soft request and Sombra shuffled off Satya's lap, extending her hands so they could be bound, too.

When the car rolled to a stop, Satya opened the car door for her. Sombra hesitated, still curled up and naked in the back seat. A gentle hand on hers guided her out, and the night air whipped like frigid lashes against her overheated skin. It was just a few steps to their rented house, and they didn't have any neighbors, and it was dark, but she felt like she was outside for hours, tense and uncomfortably turned on again.

The front door clicked open and then she was inside and safe again. Satya gripped her by the back of the neck, and Sombra bent every way she told her to, like one of those rays of hard light. She got her licks in, spanked until her ass burned like a hot coal, and only when she couldn't take any more did Satya relent. The blindfold came off, and Sombra's shaking hands unzipped her dress. Satya let it drop, fingers combing through Sombra's sweaty hair and pulling her closer.

Moaning with relief, she wrapped her lips around her and sucked. Hands still bound by the wrist, a lattice appeared over her fists and then solidified into mitts, preventing her from using anything but her mouth. Even worked up and wet as Satya was, it took a long time, until Sombra was straining to feel anything but the soreness in her jaw.

A little tremor. Satya was coming. A groan like something very big being forced to move. Satya was something so much more massive than her, so much stronger. A wall of earth. Or an ancient tree. It was that kind of noise, the mighty crumbling. It rung in Sombra's ears long after they were done.

Satya ran a comb through Sombra's hair as she rested with her head on Satya's lap, sore all over and exhausted.

The next morning they went to the beach like they promised, and Sombra frowned at her tablets while Satya slathered sunblock all over her shoulders, warning her about skin cancer. A big drink was buried into the sand next to her, right by a few paperbacks she didn't really intend to touch, and a lot of fresh seafood that she definitely did. The last few months they spent in a gloomy part of Europe, running around doing whatever Overwatch told them to do, left Sombra's dark skin looking bleached. She countered it by soaking in as much sun as she could in Mexico, clad in only a shoe-string bikini.

Because of her sensitivity to labels, to scratchy seams and fabric that made her skin feel like it was peeling off, Satya had everything custom made, including the breezy white cotton cover-up. Sombra thought she always looked like she'd stepped right off the runway, and she told her again while slurping down a watermelon margarita.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Satya said.

"Then how'd I get into your pants?" Sombra pushed her shades down just enough to wink.

"Because you amused me."

"Aw, honey. We're all alone, there's no need to keep up the tough girl act."

Satya laughed before returning to her reports. Sombra got lost in all her devices, tablets and screens flying to and fro around her until the water called. She tore Satya's white cover off and tossed her into the ocean. They enjoyed it together, their first proper day off in a very long time. Sombra knew better than to challenge Satya to a sand castle building competition; her ego wouldn't withstand the inevitable loss.

 _Maybe it was all worth it,_ Sombra thought later that night. _Pretending to be good. Playing with Overwatch. Taking real vacations._

For their second date, Satya was taking forever to get ready again even though they were just heading to the local watering hole. A black hoodie and torn black denim was good enough for her, until she saw Satya emerge looking entirely too cute for her own good. Suddenly she wished she cared enough to get custom everything, too, so she could look like she was cut from something finer the way Satya always did. It wasn't like she didn't have the money for it.

"Ughhhh," she said, dragging her hands down her face. "Why do you keep _doing_ this to me?"

Straight-faced, Satya looked extra severe as she waved her prosthetic in a single arc over her head. The lights shimmered, forming words, solidifying into a message for her:

**~*BECAUSE YOU'RE GAY*~**

The local bar was more Sombra's speed. Here she held some of the power, knowing the place like the back of her hand, and knowing Satya might be a little overloaded with the strobing lights and loud, pulsing music. But she insisted she didn't hate it and that she'd let Sombra know if that changed.

[So they danced.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbeCzCw1tT4) Sombra could cut up a rug with the best of them, but it was moments like this that let her know she and Satya were operating on the same wavelength. No words needed, just their bodies and the beat. Satya once attempted to break it down, that there were ways to talk and languages to understand that didn't involve words at all but just vibrations and frequencies, explaining music as numbers and how everything went back to math eventually as a universal constant, that in dance as art every motion carried a meaning, and even discordant music was only notable in its deviation from the norm. She listened to it all and she understood, but Sombra still gently posited her own theory: Satya liked to dance because it was fun.

"That, too," Satya admitted, her face warm, like she'd been caught admitting something naughty.

Tapping out for a round, Sombra collapsed onto a barstool and Satya reclined near her, standing with her legs crossed at the ankle. A flash of gold wound around her fingers, intricate interlocking rings that Satya stimmed with as they waited for their drinks. She hadn't even broken a sweat yet, her blazer resting over her shoulders like a cape and her blouse still cool to the touch when Sombra yanked her down for a kiss.

When Sombra knocked her tequila shot back, Satya surprised her by doing the same.

So... She ordered another, daring Satya with nothing but an unblinking stare. Not to be outdone, Satya matched her. One, two, three. Then they were dancing again, the crowd around them growing thicker and louder as the hour grew later. She spun Satya around so that she was holding her, front to back, one hand on the flat plane of her inner thigh, and Satya didn't punish her or push her away for it.

Then it was more shots, one two three four. And she was shocked that Satya managed to keep pace, but then she started losing count of exactly how many shots they had done. But she trusted Satya to tell her if it was too much. If she couldn't trust her girlfriend, who could she trust? And it was the first time she didn't want to double check her tablet and scan the news for anything fishy that might put them in danger.

At some point around three in the morning all the lights went dead. The whole bar started shouting in complaint, but Sombra just looked up and waited. The lights flickered and came back. Rejuvenated, the entire bar started cheering, and Satya pulled her outside for some air.

"You okay?" Sombra asked, unsteady as she nuzzled closer. "No te preocupes, it was just a brownout." She rapped her knuckles against the corrugated steel that served as a railing, separating the bar from the patio. "Places like this, the wind blows too hard and the power goes."

Satya's smile was grateful, and so were her kisses. Sombra swam in them, sinking further and further down, and when Satya started sweet talking her in Spanish she was _gone_.

"I think this is the best day of my life," she said, wiping her mouth and seeing her fingers come away red with Satya's lipstick.

And late the next morning, Sombra said, "I think this is the worst day of my life."

Fast forward. Daylight streamed through the windows, fresh coffee brewing. The scent was usually so soothing. Coffee in the morning, already bubbling before she was awake, meant she was with Satya, and that meant she was home. But right then the scent had her reeling into the bathroom, where she emptied out her stomach and possibly her skull, too.

When faced with a minor setback, Sombra whined endlessly. She cajoled and complained and schemed. But when she was genuinely ill she wanted to curl up in the darkness like a feral thing and hiss and swat at anything that came too close. _Everything hurts and I am vulnerable_ sent her into overdrive, and so Satya found her in a miserable pile in the shower and took pity on her.

"What can I do?" Satya asked.

"I'm fine," Sombra lied. The truth was she didn't even know what had happened last night. She was pretty sure she blacked out after the fourth round of drinks.

"I drank just as much as you did." She sat on the rim of the tub. "I wonder why I'm not sick?"

"Nah, you didn't. I was drinking all day, bella. The margaritas on the beach?"

Her big brown eyes widened even further. "Ohhh. I had forgotten."

The lights fizzled above them, a low rattle in the floor making Sombra sit up until she figured it was just a big truck on the roads next to their beach house. It faded, and so did the rumbles, and she wondered if the light flicker hadn't been a trick of the eyes.

"You know what I really want?" she said. "The only hangover cure that works for me?"

The self-driving car took them after Sombra plugged in their destination. They sat in the backseat, Sombra's legs thrown over Satya's lap. She had thick black sunglasses on and her hoodie pulled over her head, while Satya was sitting straight and prim and pretty in pale pink, reading through another report from Overwatch. They didn't fucking deserve her. Nobody deserved her. Sombra certainly didn't. She was hungover and pissed off at the entire concept of being alive when they finally pulled up to the bakery.

"Lemme—" Sombra started, but Satya put a hand on her lap, silencing her.

"Sombra." Satya said quietly. "Do you regret what we did last night?"

Her heart ached a little at the question. Satya sounded so uncertain. She would have done or said anything to make her feel better. "Of course not, chaand. I never regret anything when I'm with you."

That relieved smile was brighter than the sun.

"Stay, stay," Sombra said when Satya moved to unbuckle her seatbelt. "I don't want these people seeing you, anyway."

Satya's eyes glittered. "Dangerous?"

"Just assholes."

"I'll wait in the car, then." Satya waved with her fingertips as Sombra stomped away and into the bakery.

The little kid was still manning the register. Family chain. Hoodie up, Sombra went to the fridge and grabbed a few of the hand-made juices they stocked, including the Hangover Miracle. Cayenne and mint and a blend of mystery fruits and greens.

The kid greeted her cheerfully; Sombra grunted something in response.  When she dumped her purchases onto the counter, she took off her sunglasses, smiled blearily at the kid, and said, "Been a long time, chica."

The kid froze. She went pale, which was pretty hard for someone almost as brown as Sombra. That reaction was just the boost she needed, but what made it even better was the kid gasping and saying, "Are you here for revenge?"

 _BOYYYYY SHE THINK SHE IN A TELENOVELA_ Sombra screamed internally, while keeping her expression as neutral as possible. "I'm here for a sandwich."

She got the sandwich, and yes it was an asshole move to frighten some poor kid that Volskaya had sent her goons to squeeze, but it was also _so_ fucking funny. Also, better she learn now not to be such a snitch in the future. It was never worth it.

 _Then again, can I really judge?_ she wondered as the kid flew to and fro, finishing her order and stuffing in a few extra sugar cookies. _Shit, I'm in bed with the enemy half the time._

Cracking open her juice, she drank half of it, wincing and gasping at the burn of cayenne. God, that was good. She already felt better by the time her order was done, and she reached across the counter to tug on one of the girl's braids. "See you soon, Alma."

"Alejandra," the girl corrected her on instinct before slapping a hand over her own mouth.

She wasn't a complete monster. She paid double, figuring the rest was for emotional damages. "Tell your mom Olivia dropped by."

The kid met her stare, dark with anger and mistrust...and a little bit of guilt, when she finally dropped her gaze to the floor. "...Did you get hurt cause of me?"

"Nah." Sombra started working on her ham sandwich. "Olivia's just the name I use to order pizzas with. So stop talking to big scary Russian ladies before someone really gets hurt, hmm, Amelia?"

"Alejandra!" the kid shouted, and the floor began to rattle. This time there was no truck outside to blame, and Sombra stopped trolling the poor kid long enough to pull out her tablet, frowning at what she saw. Local reporters were being squashed and the story was being buried but eventually Sombra uncovered the truth. Tremors, most likely caused by fracking in the area, had started destabilizing the whole city.

The lights flickered, then clicked back on. Frowning, Sombra looked up at the ceiling before returning to her work, typing away.

"Seriously?" Alejandra said. "Now I have to get this register working again."

"Wasn't me," Sombra said. She reached into her pocket for more change, thinking she'd also maybe help the kid get her computer running again while she was here, when her fingers brushed against something cool and metal.

Before she pulled it out she knew exactly what it was. A ring, gold with an oval sapphire set right in the middle. The gold wove out in tendrils, a stylized blazing sun.

Instantly, she remembered. What she'd done last night, during a moment when Satya hadn't been babysitting her.

She gazed at it, thinking hard. "I think there's some weird shit happening in your town, kiddo."

"You're telling me."

Sombra lifted both eyebrows, waggling them once before exiting with a salute.

She flopped back into the car with Satya, wiggling close. "I feel better!" she declared, offering her some of the juice and a sugar cookie. The car hummed to life, and Sombra was thinking about what exactly she intended to do with that ring she found in her pocket.

Obviously it was for Satya. But she'd never gifted her jewelry before, even though she knew it would be received well. It just felt weird. Not her style. She would much rather do things for Satya than prove her love by giving her things.

Besides, just because it was a ring didn't mean it was _a ring_ , she convinced herself, no matter how fancy a ring it was. It suited Satya. She could imagine it easily on her girlfriend. But only in her imagination, she again tried to lie to herself, as she glanced to the side and took at peek at Satya's left hand to see she was already wearing a ring.

A thick square amethyst surrounded by smaller shimmering opals in the phases of the moon. The silver glittered when Satya started stimming again, rolling her fingers over the glowing center of her prosthetic

The ring in Sombra's pocket was not an engagement ring for Satya.

_It was her own ring._

Again she was blasted with the memory of last night. Recoiling with a gasp, she almost went tumbling out of the car as she realized what she'd done.

"Ohh, shit." She said. "S-stop the car. Stop!"

It veered off the road, parked on a grassy hill overlooking the rest of the city. Sombra scrambled out, pacing back and forth with her palms on the small of her back. "Oh. Ohhh boy. Okay. Don't panic. Don't panic!"

"Sombra?" Satya emerged from the car, taking her by the wrist. "What happened? Are you going to be sick again?"

"No. No." Her head was pounding something fierce though. "Umm. There's no easy way to ask this. Because you seem to remember. And I don't. Did we get engaged last night?"

The soft, sensitive sheen of her brown eyes instantly went dark.

"...We got married."

Shouting, Sombra yanked her hand free, wiping her sweating brow and pacing again. "Oh, fuck! That's way worse. Okay, like, legally though? Like paperwork and everything?" When Satya hesitantly nodded, Sombra shouted again. "Fuck, this is bad." She stiffly paced towards the grass, hands on her hips, foot tapping. "But we can fix this. No sweat, no sweat. It'll be all fine and before you know it, chaand..."

When she turned around to reassure Satya that everything would be fine, she froze.

Her girlfriend— her _wife's—_  shoulders were hunched up, prosthetic clamped over her mouth. In all the years they'd known each other, in every little aspect of her life that Sombra had hunted down and hoarded like a raven, she'd never seen Satya cry. The sight of it was worse than a slap to the face, the way her eyes scrunched up and the tears drew streaks through her makeup, and all of it without making a single noise or whimper.

_Do you regret what we did last night?_

Just a little too late, Sombra realized there was no way Satya could know what she knew. All she saw was Sombra having a meltdown on the side of the road. "Oh, chaand, no no. It's not what you think, let me explain—"

When she reached out to her, Satya violently twitched away until she was backed up against the car.

"I did not realize," Satya said, every other word on a measured inhale. "That the idea of being married to me. Was so repulsive to you."

What could she do? She needed to lay down some damage control, now, but her head still hurt and she was emotionally overwhelmed, too. She didn't even know where to start, or how to fix this. Or how to begin to explain.

 _Maybe start by groveling,_ she thought, and that was exactly what she was going to do when she noticed the trembling red bead over Satya's temple. Instinct took over; she kicked out Satya's legs from underneath her, forcing her to the ground and throwing her own body on top of her. Satya only had time for a furious shriek before the crack of gunfire cut through everything else.

[Sombra felt the bullet when it passed her, hot as a brand and screaming furiously.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SEgoi7kjw8) Dragging Satya behind the car, she fumbled for her gun and fired blindly back, more out of frustration than any hope to hit the sniper.

"Who the fuck is shooting at us?" Sombra shouted.

Snapping into action, Satya threw her hands up. Wrists twisted almost like they did when she was dancing, and a hard light barrier bubbled up around them. Another bullet hit, sparking against the barrier, and they both winced. But it didn't penetrate. They were safe for now, but how long would that last?

"We gotta move, babe!" Sombra said, pulling out her gun. It was just an 8mm pistol. They were up against a sniper. This didn't look good.

"No. I'm contacting the local Overwatch base," Satya said, pulling up her own tablet and typing rapidly. "All we have to do is stay here."

"We're sitting ducks!"

Her face was still tear-streaked, eyes bloodshot as she glared up at Sombra. "That wasn't a suggestion. Either you listen to me, or—"

The earth trembled again, more violently than ever. All across the city she heard crashes and shouts. The hard light around them flickered and turned into dust, no shield to protect them. The car also dropped like a rock, the anti-grav wheels sputtering out and dying. Everywhere they looked, the lights were turning dark. Not a brownout but a blackout over the entire city.

And when Sombra checked her tablet, which should have been operating outside the local grids, all she saw was static.

_Oh, fuck._

Another shot rang out. Sombra sank lower to the ground, pulling Satya with her, trying to keep her as close as possible. Another shot fired, hissing and screaming, and Sombra thought she saw something glinting in the distance. A scope? Her eyes playing tricks on her? She kept seeing ghosts everywhere, and she was feeling powerless again like she had when she was a teen.

She had gone delving into the darknet. Too deep and too far. And she saw things that made her lock up her security good and tight but the fear never went away. And she never left her own head ever again, never connected directly to anything bigger than her for fear that this time, she wouldn't be able to escape.

"No, chaand. _You're_ going to listen to _me_."

She took Satya's hand, the prosthetic warm in her grip. It was still flickering, because not even Sombra knew how to completely deactivate it. It was another way she said _I love you_. Satya's hard light technology was completely homegrown and unhackable. Sure enough, she managed to produce another shield for them.

It bought them time to come up with a plan.

"This is completely theoretical," Satya was insisting. "I don't know if it'll work."

"It'll work," Sombra said. "You've never hurt me before."

"I don't know if I can bring you back. It only goes one way."

Sombra kept tapping the side of her head, static buzzing through her skull. Every time she blinked she saw fragments and pixels. Her systems were fried and so was most of her tech. Even her translocater beeped uncertainly.

"This thing has enough juice for like ten seconds," she said. "So I'll see you soon."

_And if I don't—_

Satya stood, waving her arms in a wide circle. Hard light sprung up around her, an oval just big enough for Sombra. Sombra tossed her translocater at her feet and leaped through. The exit point was right above the sniper, because of course her Satya was the best. She fell on them knees first. It was over in a bloody spray, and Sombra closed her eyes and hit recall and prayed it would work.

Her body was tugged back to the translocator. But she crumpled to the ground immediately afterwards, clutching her head and writhing with pain. Her hangover headache had multiplied into a full on migraine, and all of her security systems were failing. Something was trying to get in, and everything she owned was linked directly to her spine and nervous system, and she didn't know how to fight it off.

Satya held her, hushing her with comforting words as Sombra screamed. No one took any more potshots at them, so they were lucky. Only one sniper, then.

"Someone," Sombra said when she could finally talk again, gasping and wiping blood from her face. It poured from her nose, ran down the back of her throat. "Did their homework on us."

A war had erupted over the city. Smoke rose up in noxious plumes, enemy aircraft the only thing functioning. Sombra was wrangling with miles of code and viruses, fixing whatever had fucked her own head. She managed to get back in control long enough to bring a bird down, and Satya delicately strapped herself into the pilot seat and they took off.

"To HQ?" Satya asked.

"In this thing? They'll shoot us down soon as they see us. Unless we land nearby and walk." She looked down over the city. "You feel like walking through that?"

"Communications are down. We should notify them of our status."

"Overwatch doesn't give a shit about us," Sombra said. "Something this big means there's an equally big target. We're just operatives; HQ is probably rallying together to defend the president or something."

Satya's mouth twitched down. "So what do we do?"

"Easy." Sombra smoothed down the strips of metal over either side of her head. The pain had receded, and she'd scrubbed herself clean. Hopefully. "We get the power back."

The source of her pain was easy enough to find. Some jackass at the local mining facility, using all the fracking as a cover for their real plans. Satya landed the bird nearby, then slowly started crafting herself a gun as well. Sombra squatted nearby. Her systems were at 60% capacity by her estimate and that meant most of her equipment was still not working right. So she couldn't figure out who they were dealing with, but she did find out where they were.

"Cables running under the city," she mused, flipping through screen after crackling screen. "They've got everything shut off. They've been planning this a long time."

"Talon operatives?"

"Not seeing their logo anywhere. And they're real proud of what they do and always want everyone to know it. So safe to say no."

Good because she didn't want to run into any of her old squadmates. Bad because she still had no idea what they were up against.

"If I had more time with that sniper maybe I coulda nabbed some ID or something." She flicked off her screens. "Oh well. Hindsight's 20/20."

"Sombra?"

She turned to ask Satya _what_ when Satya latched onto her and didn't let go. She was trembling, massively overstimulated on every level. And she was still crying just a little bit. Tender for a moment, she let herself stop long enough to comfort Satya, stroking down her back.

"I thought today was going to be good," Satya said. "I thought we were going to be so happy."

The ring burned a hole in her pocket.

"It's just another mission, chaand. You and me." Sombra kissed her cheek, cleaning Satya's face with her sleeve. "Do you trust me to get you out of this?"

"Yes." She helped, rubbing away the worst of the mess. Satya took a few deep breaths. "You always do."

She knew they had the right place because the facility still had all their lights on. They passed the Lumerico brand mark at every corner, pyramids and schemes. Power at any cost. Sombra was at 72% functionality and was able to open any doors they came across. It helped that the signal disrupting the entire grid was intentionally leaving this place safe.

The elevators weren't working, though. So they had to break into the emergency stairs, clattering down two steps at a time. Endless spirals, sinking lower and lower, until her lungs were burning. She really needed to stop smoking and start running more.

She had enough cloak to last a bit. So she threw it on when they reached the right floor, scoping it out before waving Satya in. "It's empty. I don't know why it isn't guarded but it looks like they've got it set up in here."

It was a massive device. It looked like something Frankenstein would scrap together if he were like, a computer science major instead of whatever he had been. More than a dozen screens glowed mint blue, shining over the controls for most of the mining equipment. The symbol wasn't anything Sombra recognized, not Lumerico or Vishkar or Talon or Overwatch. Nothing in her records or hunts gave her a single clue.

A new challenger in the arena. Sombra had a feeling this was going to be the start of a beautiful rivalry.

Satya lifted her gun, glowering fiercely. "Let us destroy it."

"Nah, nah, nah." Sombra lowered the muzzle. Then she stepped forward, cracking her knuckles eagerly. "That won't do us any good in the long run. La información es—"

"Poder. I know, Sombra. But we need to help Overwatch get back online. We need to help the people in the city. We do that by turning this off, _now_."

"Five minutes!" Sombra insisted. "Watch my back. I'm hopping in."

She ignored it when Satya hissed at her again. At 90% she could fabricate a little keyboard from her tablet and use it to interact with the device choking the city. She flew through it all, leaning on her own processors to understand and sort everything faster than her eyes could see. Piece by piece the story unfolded, each detail making its own grim sense.

"There's a mole in Overwatch," Sombra said, not tearing her eyes from the screens. "Figures. They never seem to learn their lesson, these good guys."

"What does that mean for us?"

"Means anything Overwatch has on us, now these guys do too." Sombra huffed. Explains how they got into Sombra's head. "I need more time to figure out their target. That'll make this worth it, I promise."

She took more than five minutes, and Satya warned her to hurry up. But there was so much to discover, and each clue left her wanting more until she was hip-deep in the mess. Recording everything she could, Sombra was about to call it quits when the screens started blinking one by one. Glowing mint and turquoise, they flickered until all of them had the same message blared across them.

_Detrás de ti._

Sombra whirled around, spotting only Satya.

When she returned her gaze to the screen, they all had smiley faces, except for the one at the very center.

_Made you look._

Then everything surged at her, a wave of blue taking her over and overriding all her firewalls. One by one they fell, even the ones linked to her nervous system, until Sombra couldn't scream, couldn't even breathe. She collapsed onto the floor, gasping and twitching like a dying fish.

Blacking in and out, she only saw the edge of Satya's heels as her wife stood over her, shouting into the darkness, "Stay back!"

A loud crunching noise answered her. When Sombra could lift her head from the floor she saw Satya, and in front of Satya, an omnic.

The omnic was huge, covered head to toe in ports. Turquoise lights glowed from every joint, in stripes over her head. She had gang tattoos scratched into her hull. None that Sombra recognized; she'd been out of the game too long, but she could have found out if she had a little time. If any of her systems were working.

"I knew you'd take the bait, Sombra," the turquoise omnic said, her voice ringing and hollow.

Satya fired, unleashing a stream of burning hard light on the omnic. The omnic staggered back, glitching out a moan of pain before she reached out and grabbed Satya's gun by the barrel. It crushed in her grip, and the omnic tossed it aside in a heap of trash.

Then she swatted Satya out of the way.

Satya went flying, crashing into the mass of screens and data hubs that had hacked Sombra.

The turquoise omnic grabbed Sombra by the head, lifting her up. Limply, she went with it. With, every other heartbeat, Sombra ran a diagnostic on herself.

24%

25%

26%

Too slow for anything worthwhile.

"Do I... know you?" she croaked out, tapping feebly on the omnic's bicep. There were more tattoos etched there, like laser-cut.

"You will," the turquoise omnic promised, and hooked one finger into her skull. The circuitry groaned, and Sombra started flailing again when the omnic started to rip one free, peeling it out of her scalp.

A blast of hard light knocked them both down.

Quiet, but bloodless with rage, Satya rolled her hands in another circle, flinging portal after portal at the omnic. One caught the omnic by the arm, slicing it clean free. Another portal opened up overhead, spitting out the missing limb at maximum velocity.

31%

Keeping a firm grip on Sombra, the turquoise omnic slowly turned. She marched towards Sombra, ducking and weaving through every other attack launched at her. She was distressingly quick for a bot that size, and soon Satya was tripping over herself to get away. This time the omnic would kill her. Then she would kill Sombra.

Worst of all, Sombra would die not even getting a solid answer for the question: Why?

The screens around them, those not destroyed when Satya had crashed into them, burned bloody red.

Every single one formed an eye, glaring down at the turquoise omnic.

Sombra let everything go.

Whatever it was that held her back before and kept her locked inside her own mind, she dropped it. Every firewall, every barrier. The fortress she'd built up over years online, afraid of what waited for her in the dark. Anything that left her in control, or still conceivably human instead of pure data. All of it, she deleted it in an instant. It freed her but there was such a thing as too much freedom; like black magic, it came at a price.

It was too much power for one human body to hold. It exploded through her, crashing every system and replacing it with their own. Nothing filtered, or organized. It traveled out to the nearest computers, to anything that could be hacked. Satya's arm dropped, deadweight and limp. The glowing blue core at the center of Satya's palm turned red. The lamp lights in the room turned red. Her eyes turned red. The turquoise omnic turned red. Everything was connected. And when she was connected to that big device that shut down the city, Sombra was hopelessly lost.

She was sure if they could see outside, the whole city would be awash with bloodied lights, every screen siren red.

She was more machine than person now, more than she'd ever been before.

It was enough to lift her from the floor, a surge of electricity flowing from her to the turquoise omnic, ripping the bot apart from the inside out.

"Sombra!"

She heard a name as if from a million miles away. She saw Satya through every screen in the room, and the blinking security cameras. She heard her from tablet mics and from the ears of the omnic twitching on the floor.

She wasn't Sombra anymore but just energy, flooding through the entire city, consuming every scrap of information at once.

She saw Satya detach her arm, fiddle with the glowing red core in her palm. Then Satya dropped the core in front of that massive device taking control of the city.

Satya dragged Sombra's body back into the stairwell, slamming the door shut.

When the blast detonated, it shut down the device that had darkened the city. It tore the mysterious turquoise omnic into scrap metal.

And Sombra went dark, too.

 

* * *

 

When she came to, she heard a low beeping sound. Good, that meant the power was back. She opened her eyes to see a stark white ceiling. The scent of steel and sterile death hit her nose. Bad, that meant she was in a hospital. Sombra didn't like hospitals.

Her head was in agony, split apart. At first she thought it was still the hangover until she remembered the omnic trying to peel her like an orange. She tried to run a diagnostic test and was met with silence. Panicking, she felt her scalp and found nothing but bandages.

"My gear!" were her first words when she woke up, full of rage and terror as she kicked off her blankets. Tangling herself in plastic tubes and wires all the other bullshit the hospitals had plugged into her. Two nurses had to hold her down as she bucked and kicked like a wildcat, but nothing would calm her down until Satya hurried into the room.

"Calm, calm."

She sat next to Sombra and while she was still pissed, if Satya was okay, maybe things weren't too bad. "My head!" she said. That was all she could say for a while. "My gear!"

"Uninstalled. Just temporarily." She soothed her, stroking over the bandages. "We'll have it refitted as soon as we know it's safe."

Sombra looked at her palm. No holographic tablet sprung to life. No information dancing at her fingertips. "I don't want Overwatch touching my stuff. Were they the ones who shut me down? I knew they wouldn't keep their word!"

"No," Satya said. When Sombra looked down, she noticed Satya had a clunky, ugly prosthetic on. It wasn't flesh colored or even pearly white and chrome. It was the color of plastic flatware, off-brand, yellowish. No core glowed at the center. "I think I did."

She couldn't remember much, but Satya said maybe that was a good thing. Morrison and Oxton swung by to get a report from Satya. All the while Sombra lay there and moaned and sniped and was generally so unpleasant that Satya actually shushed her a few times. So she sulked and steamed until they were gone, and then sank deeper in her bed and struggled to remember what happened.

"I need a phone or a computer or anything," she insisted. "If I can't be plugged in I need something."

"Anything else?" Satya asked.

"My clothes." She hesitated. When Sombra woke up, she'd been wearing one of those flimsy hospital gowns and nothing else. "And. Do you have my ring?"

Satya could be a hard read on the best of days, when they weren't both covered in scratches and bruises and hurting emotionally and physically. She kept her gaze level, her voice even. "I didn't think you wanted that."

"I do," Sombra said. "But also, we need to get rid of any other proof we got married."

More hurt swam in Satya's eyes. But this time, Sombra could explain.

"I used my real name," she said, "Didn't I? When I signed all that legal shit."

"You used _a_ name," Satya hedged. "I don't know if it was the real one."

"It was," Sombra said. "I remember that much. I can't have that floating around, Saty. Please help me get rid of the evidence."

Sombra reached out, floppy and weak like a kitten, and Satya's clunky prosthetic missed before gripping her too tight.

"It's dangerous," Sombra said. "For you and for me. I have to get rid of any proof it happened. Okay?"

"...Okay."

Satya busted her out of the hospital the next morning.

While she didn't have her gear installed, and it wasn't as fast, Sombra could still do just about anything she wanted from a computer terminal. She found all the records of their marriage and she deleted them. And then they went to the chapel where they had gotten married, and Sombra strong-armed anybody in their way until they found the physical record, too.

"Should probably burn this," Sombra said, pulling out a lighter.

Satya didn't say anything, but she winced.

Sombra thought about it.

Then she folded it up and tucked it into her front pocket. She raised both eyebrows, lifting her chin a bit, daring Satya to say something about it.

She didn't.

"Maybe I'll burn it later," Sombra said, and used the lighter to spark up a cigarette instead. She smoked in the chapel and her hands shook a little less when she got her fix.

"Maybe I will," Satya said, "Since you evidently lack the mental fortitude."

"No way!" Sombra flinched out of reach. "It's mine. It's proof we can keep. Even if nobody else knows. We'll know."

_Good luck returning me without the receipt, Vaswani._

"Then let us return home."

They weren't good with words, weren't good with feelings. But they were married now, so maybe that would change. Maybe she could change a little more, change more every day, new updates until she didn't know who she was anymore.

Maybe that was a good thing.

"Overwatch owes me a new core." Satya reached into her purse. She pulled out only one ring, because the other had been on her original prosthetic. She slipped it onto Sombra's finger, stroking it once. "Winston and Dr. Ziegler already agreed to help me—"

"Nope." Sombra clutched her hand tight.  "That one is you and me, babe. No matter what else we do, we can't let them have that. Okay? I trusted them with mine and look what happened."

Her head was aching fiercely now that the drugs started to fade.

"Why _did_ you trust them with that?" Satya said in wonder. "When your systems failed as well, I didn't know what to think. Mine were all at optimum performance, while..."

"Like I said. There's a mole in HQ. Overwatch has a backdoor to all my systems, so the bad guys knew how to shut me down too." She tapped a nail to the hollow parts of her skull where the circuitry should be, smiling weakly. "It's collateral. _I'm_ collateral. If you ever start stepping out of line, they'll shut me down."

Sombra was not good at words. Deeply uncomfortable, she crossed her arms and started looking around the chapel, seeking some kind of distraction. But there was only Jesus on the cross.

So that was why Satya was able to hold onto all her tech while the entire city went dark. Satya was able to keep her information confidential. Her life's work was protected. _Satya_ was protected. Overwatch could have Sombra if they wanted her, but they could kick rocks and beg if they wanted to know more about how Satya's technology worked. A fair tradeoff.

"Soo, anyway. Yeah." Sombra played with the lighter, making sparks without lighting the flame. "That's the deal I made so they wouldn't get any info on your stuff. So don't let them help you rebuild it. Don't trust them with shit. Or we're both fucked."

Satya stared at her for a long time. Outwardly calm, but Sombra could feel the calculations running in her head, so much that her systems were probably overheating. "I didn't know."

"I didn't want you to know."

"This is blackmail," Satya said, growing more agitated. "It isn't right! You're practically a _prisoner_."

"Mmm." Sombra pressed a palm to her pocket, listening to the crinkle of folded paper inside. Satisfied. "Well, you know I'd rather be chained to you than free anywhere else."

Satya glared at her, squeezing her hand a little tighter. "Then we'll break that chain. We'll find the mole. Crush them. And then we will see what Overwatch has to say for itself."

"And then go on a real honeymoon?" Sombra asked brightly, intentionally sweet to try and contrast against Satya's sudden dark mood.

"...And then go on a real honeymoon," Satya agreed, after a moment.

Maybe somewhere cold.

That would be nice.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my friend Kylie <3


End file.
